At the present time, it is common practice for stores, particularly supermarkets, to offer lower prices on selected articles used as promotions by the various food suppliers. These coupons may be mailed to customers directly by the food suppliers or published in newspapers particularly weekend supplements. Additionally, the discount coupons may be placed in the supermarkets.
The use of the coupons which is for promotional purposes is due to the fact that most products are now marked with what is called a bar code that is optically read at the checkout counter. Therefore, the coupons are redeemed at the checkout counter. The various retailers will have the prices of their products entered into a computer or other data processing device which will register the price of an article after the bar code is swept over the optical scanning device. For these reasons, the use of the rebate coupons have proliferated.
While the use of the coupons provides a shopper with some savings, there are limitations in the use of coupons. For example, depending upon the number and type of products for which the coupons are being used it is necessary for a shopper to handle a large number of different coupons on a given shopping trip. Different shoppers have different ways of organizing the coupons and in many cases the method of organization or lack of organization of the coupons will cause delays at the check out counter.
Various organizers or coupon holders have been proposed in the past. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,504 discloses a shopping organizer adapted to be attached to the handle of a shopping basket and includes pockets for receiving various devices such as coupons, shopping lists, calculators and other items useful for shopping.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,994 discloses a small filing case useful for putting in index dividers for organizing coupons. U.S. pat. no. 4,702,402 also discloses a product coupon container which is attachable to a shopping cart across the rear and upper edge bars of the basket. U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,280 discloses a portable desk and article carrying structure for use with shopping carts.
The disclosures of all of these patents have one feature of commonality and that is that the shopper must bring it with them to the store and then carry it home. Additionally, the shopper must attach it to the handle or other portions of the shopping cart.
However, to permanently attach a coupon holder to the pushing handle of a shopping cart, requires consideration in view of the nesting of the shopping carts where one shopping cart, when nested, may extend into several other shopping carts due to the hinged nature of the back panel of the carts. As is well known, the back panel of the shopping carts is hinged in such a manner when another cart is pushed into it, the back panel will swing upwardly to permit nesting.
Co-pending application Ser. No. 335,817, filed Apr. 10, 1989, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,402, discloses a new and improved coupon holder adapted for permanent attachment to the pushing handle of a shopping cart, and such a coupon holder which may be moved either vertically on the shopping cart pushing handle or may rotate with respect therewith to provide nesting of the carts. Tests have shown, however, that it is preferable to provide a coupon holder which will move vertically on the pushing handle of the carts when the carts are nested in storage positions.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a new and improved coupon holder which will primarily move vertically on the pushing handle of a shopping cart when the carts are nested but also has the capability under adverse circumstances to rotate on the pushing handle and move to a position which will permit nesting of the carts.